Yeah but five years of the ten are skewed a tad.

Posted on: March 22, 2017 at 14:15:51 CT

Cuonzo took over sanctions left by Bruce Pearl at Tennessee, and couldn't do much his first two years there. And then he was essentially run out of town, by the semi-racist fans, who literally started a petition to remove him and bring Bruce Pearl back (to the tune of 40,000 signatures) . . . but that was before Cuonzo took Tennessee to the sweet 16 in his third year, and then they started loving him and the AD tried to offer him a raise to retain him, but the damage had been done, so he parachuted to Cal.

At Cal, sure he was 1 for 3, but he improved their recruiting classes, and was a #1 NIT seed this year, which means they barely missed the tourney this year.

At Missouri State. Let's be honest, those years don't count much, with Wichita State in their conference. Because in the MVC, if you don't win conference tourney you don't go to the NCAA. Wichita dominates that conference. Sure, Underwood went to three straight with SFA, but he inherited a 26-3 team from the previous year. My point is, those three years missing NCAA at Missouri State is a again skewed. Because it was a building effort there too, and he took over a 7th place 17-16 Bears team, which defined mediocrity, in the 2000s. But he did win division out right, one year as Missouri State coach.

One fact the Cuonzo haters don't mentions much . . . he averages like 21 or 22 wins a season, and has (.606 winning percentage). While not superb, as a Mizzou fan, I'll take it.

Edited by mooseamas2 at 14:17:37 on 03/22/17